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1 January 2020 India in the Oil Palm Era: Describing India’s Dependence on Palm Oil, Recommendations for Sustainable Production, and Opportunities to Become an Influential Consumer
H. S. Sathya Chandra Sagar, Amani Mabano, Ramya Roopa, Mahmuda Sharmin, Freddie-Jeanne Richard, Julia Clause
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

India is the largest consumer and importer of palm oil in the world. Its demand for palm oil is expected to double by 2030, which cannot be sustained just by increasing the import quantity, as it would be exporting its biodiversity issues to the supplying countries. We support the Government of India’s views to expand oil palm cultivation in India. However, an aggressive push toward domestic oil palm cultivation at the expense of biodiversity is currently underway. Unsustainable expansion of oil palm cultivation in India with short-term economic goals will lead to both biodiversity and social issues. In this article, we outline India's position in the production and trade of palm oil. By reviewing the situation of Malaysia and Indonesia, we also propose necessary, workable solutions for sustainable oil palm cultivation in India. We recommend working within an integrative framework involving scientific research, social measures, and political actions: the ‘SSP framework.’ We believe that such an integrated approach is critical to achieve global sustainability targets from Paris Agreement at COP21 and 2015–2030 United Nation Sustainable Development Goals.

© The Author(s) 2019 Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
H. S. Sathya Chandra Sagar, Amani Mabano, Ramya Roopa, Mahmuda Sharmin, Freddie-Jeanne Richard, and Julia Clause "India in the Oil Palm Era: Describing India’s Dependence on Palm Oil, Recommendations for Sustainable Production, and Opportunities to Become an Influential Consumer," Tropical Conservation Science 12(1), (1 January 2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/1940082919838918
Received: 15 November 2018; Accepted: 26 February 2019; Published: 1 January 2020
KEYWORDS
Biodiversity conservation
integrated approach
land-use management
policy framework
Sustainable Development Goals
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